The assault got here simply hours after China’s Overseas Minister Wang Yi met with authorities officers within the capital N’Djamena
Not less than 19 individuals have been killed in Chad the place safety forces mentioned that they had prevented an try by armed fighters to storm the presidential complicated within the capital N’Djamena.
Not less than 18 of a pressure of 24 armed males had been killed within the failed assault on the president’s workplace on Wednesday night, the federal government mentioned, and one member of the safety forces additionally died within the gun battles.
“There have been 18 useless and 6 injured” among the many attackers “and we suffered one loss of life and three injured, considered one of them significantly”, Chad’s overseas minister and authorities spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah mentioned.
Hours after the taking pictures, Koulamallah appeared in a video, surrounded by troopers and with a gun on his belt, saying, “The scenario is totally underneath management … the destabilisation try was put down.”
The assault coincided with an official go to by China’s Overseas Minister Wang Yi to Chad.
Hours earlier than the taking pictures erupted, Wang Yi had met with Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and different senior officers. Deby was within the presidential complicated on the time of the assault, in accordance with Koulamallah.
Deby seized energy after rebels killed his father, longstanding President Idriss Deby, in 2021. The older Deby had dominated Chad since a coup within the early Nineteen Nineties.
A safety supply advised the French information company AFP that the attackers had been members of the Boko Haram armed group, however Koulamallah later mentioned they had been “most likely not” rebels, describing them as a substitute as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” – a reference to a French comedian that includes hapless crooks.
A safety supply additionally advised the Reuters information company that the incident was probably an “tried terrorist assault”.
“People in three automobiles attacked the army camps across the president’s workplace, however the military neutralised them,” the supply mentioned, talking on situation of anonymity.
Residents within the space described listening to loud volleys of gunfire.
The assault comes lower than two weeks after Chad held a contested basic election that the federal government hailed as a key step in direction of ending army rule, however that was marked by low turnout and opposition allegations of fraud.
A name by the opposition for voters to boycott the polls left the sector open for candidates aligned with the president.
The previous French colony, which is wealthy in oil sources however one of many poorest international locations in Africa, hosted France’s final army bases within the area often known as the Sahel, however on the finish of November, ended defence and safety agreements with Paris, calling them “out of date”.
About 1,000 French army personnel had been stationed within the nation and are within the means of being withdrawn. Their departure follows after France was pushed out of three Sahelian international locations ruled by army governments hostile to Paris: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Senegal and Ivory Coast have additionally requested France to vacate army bases on their territory.
